Balance folks, it's all about balance. I wrote reviews, and alas summer is gone, so both the time and money that's typically required to play, and then talk about, new video games may no longer available. Yet somewhere in the back of my mind I cannot help but shake the feeling I will still be playing a constant stream of new video games anyways... No, no, moving on, moving along. Welcome to a new series, my padawans, welcome to DO OR DO NOT, THERE IS NO TRY. Taking off from where mister Marshall began with his cardinal sins of game design, I will narrow in on more specific things. This month? Terrorizing, scarerorizing, makingthemturnthelightsbackonitizing, the DO and DO NOTS of effective horror games. Getting back to balance, horror is all about balance. A horror can be good without looking real (Susperia) a horror can be good without being scary (Evil Dead 2) and a horror can even look good and still not be scary (The Last Decades Or So). As it starts to feel like everything in popular horror has been said or done, at least I think they're out of holidays, people, even directors, seem to be focusing their attention on horror video games. Though this new medium may not be the promised unholy land after all, as it makes the delicate balancing act even harder as it introduces a new, dangerous element. Fun. There are games that are very fun, but not scary (Dead Space) there are games that are very scary but are not as fun (Silent Hill) and then there are games that are scary if only due to their existence (what the hell is Illbleed anyways?). I don't know if we've met the perfect balance, and I cannot even promise we ever will. So instead I give to you, reader, some suggestions, a guide that may one day put us on the right path... TO HELL.
DO make me a wimpy, powerless human being (FATAL FRAME, SILENT HILL, CLOCK TOWER, CONDEMNED)
It seems generally packaged that within the concept of video games comes the concept that you play as somebody special. Someone who can withstand their environment and agitators, and even the most human seeming still manage to crawl out of five consecutive car crash slash gun battles uncared. It sheds their mortality, which of course is the scariest aspect of the human construct. Even if it means we cannot unlock the missile launching power glove I'd prefer to see ourselves fairly play as generally useless people in horror games. In Silent Hill and Condemned we could only find aid from the likes of two-by-fours, and even our fire arms gave out on us before the demons were slain. Clock Tower seemed to have you figure out how to get your enemy to fuck up more than defeat them yourselves. And Fatal Frame armed you with, well, a god damn camera. So it goes without saying...
DO NOT make me super duper macho buff Sgt. Cliff Kickass (F.E.A.R., THE DARKNESS, DEAD SPACE, PREY)
I can understand why the aliens in Prey were so intimidated by me, as it became pretty clear early on that I could not die, and even when I did I would respawn in the exact same spot with roughly the same amount of ammo and even more health. It certainly declaws the shadows when you can go into bullet time, and slow down your enemies. It declaws them even more when you have a gun that shoots remote controlled chainsaws.
DO make me feel like there's no turning back at this point (BIOSHOCK, DEAD SPACE, THE SUFFERING)
It's one thing to be yelling at the blonde in the movie to just leave the damn haunted house, but it's another thing to be in control of that blonde. I want to feel like as if I don't have a say in the matter, that I'm tied to these conditions, because after all I'm in control, and if it were up to me my stupid sibling/daughter can wait till god damn daytime for me to enter this spook riddled pagoda. There's plenty of options too, the void of space isn't the only one y'know? Get creative, hell I'll even take "fell into a deep fucking hole."
DO NOT assume zombies are actually still scary (RESIDENT EVIL, HOUSE OF THE DEAD, OKAY SO REALLY JUST RESIDENT EVIL)
Come now folks, let's be honest. Zombies just aren't scary anymore, and on the other end of the controller you tend to be chuckling, not shaking, when you are blowing their pixely brains out with a sawed off. Resident Evil has for a while almost been testing us, pushing just how not-scary zombies can be. I think somewhere during the Lollypop Kid's army of centipede Spaniards was when I started to bite my tongue. Though professional Lorne Michaels impersonator Albert Wesker sure wasn't helping.
DO be aware how unsettling the mystery is (CONDEMNED, 7th GUEST, SILENT HILL)
There's something hard to pinpoint about puzzles and mysteries, something vague, obstructive and down right creepy. Someone so obsessed with puzzles, or a world revolving around the windings of the brain just ain't right in the head. Being distracted by the "why" makes the spectre standing behind you all the more startling. The entire finale of Condemned is a tribute to this idea, where even though you're surrounded by only forensics to be done, you're still on your toes that somethings about to slither through the floorboards and take your life. And speaking of the places things come from...
DO NOT reuse set pieces (DOOM 3, RESIDENT EVIL, DEAD SPACE)
Better known as monster closets, these are the factors that turn horror survival games into Where's Waldo. Though replace Waldo with air vents, lockers and the ever tempting glass window. Sure, it'll get you the first time, but after a few dozen rotations you'll just enter rooms with your cross-hairs ready for the well memorized enemy animation about to unfold.
DO embrace sound (DEAD SPACE, SILENT HILL, ALICE)
Horror games are the only genre of games entirely dependent on tapping into the senses of the gamer, and to do so it's only wise to aim for ALL senses of the gamer (though maybe I'll generally pass on smell and taste (unless Cooking Mama tells me otherwise...). There are plenty of games that could proudly replace your Halloween sounds tape cassettes, though you may accidentally leave the lil' kiddies with cold feet to take your candy (more candy for you though). Find a sound guy who knows scary sound, and it's not like the equation for eerie music is so dense but I would highly recommend avoiding wicked guitar solos during boss battles.
DO NOT make games based on actual horror movies (FRIDAY THE 13th, NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST., BLAIR WITCH, EVIL DEAD)
For most slasher flicks, half the fun is the betting pool you make on who's going to make it to the credits, but even that thrill is murdered because the safest bet goes to whoever it is you are playing as. The things that make great cinematic horror great just don't translate well to video games, add on top of which the general tendancy for movie tie-ins to be sloppy and un-inspired and you end up with, well, trite.
